Placating
by tielan
Summary: After getting caught doing 'something stupid', Merlin has to placate Arthur.


**NOTES**: This was written for the merlin_santa challenge, and my recipient requested "Merlin inadvertently discovering he's immortal and experimenting with it, with Arthur thinking his servant's gone insane/suicidal". My beta felt this should be the first chapter of a bigger story, but I haven't had the time to look at expanding it.

Unfortunately, my recipient didn't seem to like it (she never responded to the story at all), but hopefully there are others out there who will enjoy it instead!

**Placating**

The first time, he doesn't realise what's happened at all.

--

In his hurry to get back to Arthur, short and impatient with his servant on this midwinter night, Merlin quite forgot about the small patch of ice that almost twisted his ankle on the way down to the kitchens.

Doubtless some servant forgot to wipe up after spilling a little water, or maybe a servant hauling a bucket let the liquid slosh over the wooden rim.

Either way, the result is the same. His feet slide out from under him, his body unbalances. The ceiling falls away from him with painful slowness as the meat, wine, and bread on his tray go flying.

It's not as painful as the crack of his head against the floor, but that's, thankfully, the last thing he feels before darkness hits.

Merlin wakes to a headache and Gwen's anxious gaze. "Merlin?"

"Gwen! I... What are you--?" The question halts on his lips. "What am I doing here?"

A wild glance around him shows the spilled goblet that was formerly full of steaming wine, a hunk of bread lying tumbled in a corner, a pool of meat juices dribbling out from beneath the spilled platter of roast slices.

"You'd fallen - how's your head?"

He barely puts his hand up to touch the back of his skull - a little bruised, but without any blood or major pain. Instinct gets him to his feet. "Arthur's going to be--"

"Never mind Arthur!" Gwen sounds unusually cross as she rises from her knees. "What about you?"

"I'm fine." Merlin blinks a few times, then looks at her - beautiful and bewildered. "Really, I'm fine, Gwen. Honest. It's nothing."

"You fell and hit your head - that's not something you should just ignore, Merlin."

"I'm not ignoring it." He feels a little odd, but he's not ignoring it. "It doesn't feel hurt - look, could I balance this tray if I wasn't feeling fine?"

She eyes the tray held steady in his hands for a few seconds, as though waiting for it to wobble. When it didn't, she sighed. "All right. I'll clean up," she says after a moment. "You go and get another platter for Arthur. And be careful going up those stairs next time!"

Merlin grins as he heads for the kitchens again. "Yes, mother!"

--

The second time it's a bit more obvious, because there's not a lot of leeway when your arm gets sliced open.

--

It happens during a fight in which Merlin's too busy trying to keep from being killed to really notice all the little aches and pains hitting him.

Merlin feels the slice down his arm, screams as the cut jars across bone, but he's scrambling to get out of the way of the upswing, and doesn't really pay attention to the pain. It distracts him from the spell he was going to cast - something to pin the foot of his attacker for just long enough to tip the man over. The spell splinters in his head and he rolls over, cradling his right forearm to his chest, even as his mind scrambles for the next syllable.

"_Ainor roth shartha e libo esk._"

He barely gets the words out in time for the attacker - a common bandit with some very uncommon swordsmanship - to stumble and fall over when his foot doesn't move as he expects it to.

Merlin manages to roll to his feet, now thankful for all those times when Arthur mercilessly forced him to join training with the knights. Not the sword fighting stuff, but the other stuff - how to roll, how to fall, how to get back up on his feet instead of lying on the ground like an invitation to be stabbed. Unfortunately, there was never a lesson on what to do when you've had your arm sliced open...

His arm.

Merlin stares at the shallow slice that's not bleeding the way it should considering he felt the grate of knife against bone. A moment later, he yelps as Arthur grabs his arm and shoves him out of the way of the blade coming directly at his head.

"Are you stupid? No, wait, I already know the answer to that. Do you have some kind of death wish? Get out of the fighting, Merlin!"

How Arthur can yell at him and fight simultaneously is beyond Merlin, but he does.

While he's on his way out of the fight - which they seem to be winning if the number of downed bandits is any indication, Merlin manages to pin the toe of another bandit long enough to trip him up, and ducks behind a tree to inspect himself.

It hurts - a sharp line of burning down his arm, like the blood that smears as he gingerly wipes it away. But it's not the agony it was those first few seconds, and although Merlin could swear he felt the scrape of the knife against his bone, there's nothing to show for it but a shallow slice that runs from an inch below his inside elbow and crosses to his outer wrist.

He's not dead, he's not dying, he's not bleeding out.

And he should be.

--

After that, he experiments a little.

--

Gaius is down in the city, getting supplies. It should be Merlin's job, but since his arm was injured, he's been spared the worst of the carrying.

His arm is fine, just sore. The scar is impressive - it runs the length of his forearm, from his inside wrist all the way up to just shy of his elbow. Arthur took one look and told him he was bloody lucky not to lose use of his arm entirely.

Arthur has no idea.

Merlin wants to know what's happening to him - why his arm healed back up to nothing more than a scab, torn flesh sealing back up together like a seamstress sews up a rent in a tunic.

Once, Merlin might have gone down to the caverns beneath the castle to ask the Great Dragon. That's no longer an option. He thought about telling Gaius, but he wants to know more before he shows this to anyone else. He wants to be sure.

Gaius has a small steel knife that's used for chopping herbs and other things that go into his potions. Merlin wipes it off in an astringent solution that helps prevent cuts from growing pus and clears the table.

His arm looks pale and smooth against the rough wood of the table top, compared with his hands that are red and rough from his chores - a servant's hands. Whatever it is that healed his wound doesn't extend to smoothing out his work-worn skin.

Merlin shakes his head, grits his teeth, and starts with small cuts.

He starts on the upper side of his arm, with his hand face-down, cold steel biting into his flesh. A light scratch stings, but draws blood for a split second, then heals to the raised line of a scab. A deeper slice causes him to hiss in pain, but again, the blood has barely enough time to well up before the scab forms.

Well enough. Time to try something a little more dangerous.

A deep breath is his cue to dig the edge of the blade deeply across his arm. He grits his teeth, but it hurts about as much as he expected, and a grunt of pain escapes his lips, breath hissing through his teeth as a way to cope with the pain.

But when he brushes away the blood, wincing at the pain, the flesh is already healing.

Merlin's mind churns as he watches the scab forming, a reddish-brown centre with hard edges. Does this mean he's immortal? Is it the magic, working on his body now and not just his mind? What if he drank poison, got an arrow through the heart, fell down the steps and broke his neck?

"What do you think you're doing?"

The voice comes out of nowhere - as does the hand that snatches the knife from his grasp. Merlin jerks back and finds himself facing a furious Prince.

"Arthur?"

"I suppose I should be glad that you recognise me."

Merlin gapes at him. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Because you're clearly out of your mind, sitting at a table chopping yourself to bits!" Arthur makes a gesture with the knife. "I mean, really, Merlin. If you had a death wish that you needed fulfilled, then surely you could have at least asked to come along the next time the knights ride out. You could be sword fodder if nothing else!"

"I..." Merlin realises this is going to take some fast thinking. Except that his brain isn't thinking quite fast enough to keep up with Arthur's anger.

The anger's rather touching, in a way. Comforting, to know that he's valuable to Arthur, even if he doesn't always feel it.

"Is your life really so miserable that you feel the need to end it?"

"I... No! I'm not trying to kill myself, Arthur!"

"Well, that's what it looked like!" The knife is brandished under Merlin's nose, and Merlin jerks back as Arthur glares at him. "What were you doing anyway?"

"What was I...?"

"Because if you weren't trying to kill yourself, then it looked a lot like it!"

"I'm fine!"

Merlin waves his arm in front of Arthur, trying to show just how fine he is. His arm aches a little, but he's not about to give Arthur the satisfaction of seeing that it hurts.

"No, you haven't killed yourself. That's not the same as fine, okay, or even 'in your right mind!'"

He studies Arthur for a moment - the furious expression and the tense stance - even the grip on the knife, white-knuckled. In spite of the anger on the other man's face, Merlin finds a smile creeping onto his lips - and a feeling like he's just clutched a fire-warmed blanket to his chest.

"You're really worried about me."

"I don't want to have to train someone else up, just now that I've got you sorted out."

"Yes, I'm sure that's it."

"That _is_ it." It's not anger now, more of a petulance, like Arthur's usual annoyance with Merlin. The kind that Merlin can deal with. "What were you doing, anyway?"

"Uh...experimenting."

"Experimenting?"

"Yes." He reaches for the first idea that comes to him. "Gaius is trying a new ointment on open cuts. And, since we didn't know if it worked or not, I thought that it would be best to test it on myself first."

"By cutting yourself open?"

"Well...yes." Part of him wishes he could tell Arthur the truth. About the healing, about the magic, about all of it. But he can't be sure that Arthur won't turn on him.

Arthur eyes him for a very long, very quiet moment, during which Merlin can hear the noise from the town drifting in the windows. Then he lays the knife down on the table, flat and leans forward.

"Don't do that again, Merlin."

"I won't."

"I mean it."

"I know you do." Merlin thinks that Arthur's never looked quite so intense before. "I won't. Promise." Arthur eyes him narrowly, and Merlin think that changing the topic is probably a good idea. "So, what did you come down here for? Got some chores for me?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." Arthur glances around the room, then plucks at Merlin's tunic. "But I'm not leaving you to do them alone."

"What? You'll help?"

"Yes, because I'm just that good at polishing chain mail." Arthur rolls his eyes and cuffs Merlin about the head lightly. "Come on. If it's death you want, I can work you to it."

As Merlin puts the knife away in its customary spot, he reflects that the mystery of what's happened to him is something that's going to have to wait another day. In the meantime, he has Arthur to placate and reassure, even if the other man doesn't realise it.

- **fin** -


End file.
